Jellicles Can And Jellicles Do: Meet Bastet

Spry as a kitten, sage as Old Deuteronomy, with talents and graces and kindness and joy…one could hardly wait to hear the words of the Director, the magical, Jellicle, Bambi Johnson-cat! We’ll call her… Bastet… mother and goddess of cats! MEOW!

Director Bambi Johnson at a rehearsal for Cats.

Thank you so much for giving us some of your rehearsal time and all of your actors to participate in this series. We are just so excited to do this with you! If you could just officially tell us who you are, we can get started!

Bambi Johnson: I’m Bambi Johnson, have been my whole life. Well, the Bambi part my whole life. Bambi Johnson at least the last 15 years of my life. And I’m the Director for Cats.

Why did you want to direct Cats this time around?

Bambi: Well that is the million dollar question. Everybody just loved it so much the first time around, they kept asking, “why would you touch it again?” And I said, “Are you kidding? It’s an entire new space with an entire new cast, it’s an entire new challenge of my absolute favorite musical.” So why not reimagine the whole thing? Why not push my skills to the limit in trying to put it into a little tiny theatre? Last time I did it, the show was in a massive theatre. It’s going to be a very different show, completely reimagined, but just as magical.

Why do you love this show so much?

Bambi: The magic! It’s magical! Come on, he (Andrew Lloyd Webber) took this book of poems and he illustrated them with dance and music, tied it together with a loose plot, but please don’t look for a plot in this show. If you do you’re just going to frustrate yourself. Just sit back and enjoy the beautiful, magical thing that it is. Because it will move you if you don’t try to get too cerebral and just enjoy it.

If you had to be one of the cats in Cats, which cat would you be?

Bambi: Oh. I have literally been all of them throughout this rehearsal process! But who would I like to be? I would like to be Victoria. Because I’m a dancer.

Michonne, the cat. Who rules all the dogs.

Now we know you don’t have any cats as pets—

Bambi: Oh yes I do!!

You do!?

Bambi: I do! I do have a cat! Her name is Michonne, from Walking Dead. Michonne is the most chill cat you will ever meet. She’s loveable. She’s fat. She’s Tortie. So Tortie’s are notorious for their attitude— their ‘Torti-tude’. I love her to death. And she rules my four dogs; she is definitely in charge of them.

What does it mean to you to be a Jellicle Cat?

Bambi: I hate to keep using the same word, but Jellicle Cats are magical! They are everything that your imagination can bring to them. They walk on air; they trail glitter behind them. They’re part of a clowder and that’s what makes them Jellicle.

What has been your big personal takeaway from Cats this time around?

Bambi: That I can love it just as much as I did the first time.

If you had to sum up the experience of Cats in just one word, and we know you already feel it’s very magical, but what might another word be for you?

Bambi: It’s moving.

Cats plays September 16^th 2022 through September 25^th 2022 with Tidewater Players, in residence at the Cultural Center at The Havre de Grace Opera House— 121 N. Union Street in historic downtown Havre de Grace, MD. For tickets call the box office at 667-225-8433 or purchase them online.

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